Merry Xmas

[Raphael]

Hope you all have a good one. x

[Saturn]

And to all Keats fans a prosperous New Year!

[Cath]

Yes, Happy Holidays everyone! This forum is sadly undervisited and underused these days... . A quiet time in Keats studies perhaps.

[Saturn]

Yeah, in days gone by I would have posted several times a day but now sometimes weeks, a month goes by before anyone posts sadly.
Facebook, Twitter etc. have come along and swallowed the forum as a meeting place for like minds.

[Raphael]

Yeah, in days gone by I would have posted several times a day but now sometimes weeks, a month goes by before anyone posts sadly.
Facebook, Twitter etc. have come along and swallowed the forum as a meeting place for like minds.

There are no Keats Facebook/Twitter sites that have taken over Saturn- people have just come and gone. Maybe people still left on here need to start some interesting new topics? The Beethoven one I go on is posted on pretty much daily, and my blog often gets 30 visits a day. Maybe start a Keats Wordpress blog Saturn?

[Saturn]

It's not a question of content I don't think, I mean I could happily think of new topics new debates to post and would post them here but the response and the membership of this forum is so small [despite what the numbers say] that there is little point. The form of a forum like this, with its terminally outdated software and the literally dozens of spam posters I have to delete every single day is an outmoded mode of communication of ideas in the same way as the original 'chatrooms' of the early net have disappeared completely.
The multiplicity of ways of communicating is simply overwhelming.
No there is nothing that has replaced it really, there has just been a massive seachange in the internet, in people's lives generally in the ten years I've been doing this.
I know personally I don't have as much interest in the things I did then, and my knowledge of Keats and poetry is not what it once was, I've always had many and varied interests and poetry has had to take a back seat due to other things that happen in life when you move from youth to encroaching middle age.

I've heard of Wordpress but not really sure what it's about.

Anyway I won't abandon this site despite my complaining, it has meant a lot at times in my life just not sure what the point of maintaining it is anymore.

[Raphael]

It's not a question of content I don't think, I mean I could happily think of new topics new debates to post and would post them here but the response and the membership of this forum is so small [despite what the numbers say] that there is little point. The form of a forum like this, with its terminally outdated software and the literally dozens of spam posters I have to delete every single day is an outmoded mode of communication of ideas in the same way as the original 'chatrooms' of the early net have disappeared completely.

Well the Beethoven one I am on gets daily posts, but hasn't a huge members list either. Forums themselves are not entirely outmoded- some are thriving- like alternative news/conspiracy theories/ spirituality forums. I have stumbled on them when general surfing and they get about 50-100 posts a day. I am afraid it is often down to subject matter and visual presentation of the forums. Probably not many people are interested enough in Romantic poets/Keats to look for this type of forum and post on here- sad but true.

The multiplicity of ways of communicating is simply overwhelming.
No there is nothing that has replaced it really, there has just been a massive seachange in the internet, in people's lives generally in the ten years I've been doing this.

I do think blogging has become more popular. Blogs are also more visually interesting and versatile.

I know personally I don't have as much interest in the things I did then, and my knowledge of Keats and poetry is not what it once was, I've always had many and varied interests and poetry has had to take a back seat due to other things that happen in life when you move from youth to encroaching middle age.

True, one's interests can change, but constant for me is always my interest in literature, the 18th and 19th centuries, classical music, medical history, poetry...

I've heard of Wordpress but not really sure what it's about.

Well see mine for an idea. I think a Keats/poetry blog would get far more hits than a forum most people don't know about. You can add videos, pictures/artwork, your own poetry, comments on Keats' poems and other works, discussions on his life and so on. It is a great way to promote your own work too. I found a couple of writers on Wordpress who are really exceptional!!! Inspired me a lot.My blog is eclectic- classical music, Beethoven, my fiction/poems, history, literature, historical instruments etc..

https://edwardianpiano.wordpress.com/

Anyway I won't abandon this site despite my complaining, it has meant a lot at times in my life just not sure what the point of maintaining it is anymore.

Well it can be an archive- but I do think rather than keeping this as some kind of sad mausoleum, why not take some of the material from here and start a Keats blog- and a place to promote your own poems? I am still early days in my blog journey and I am so glad I started it, I am finding it fulfilling and inspiring.

This forum is not gonna come back to life, the folks on here have perhaps exhausted all they can post about ( at least on a regular basis), so maybe time to start a new enterprise?

I think it'd do well- people do seem to like poetry blogs from my experience of Wordpress blogging.